Immigration, Naturalization and Transmigration Information

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SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Immigrant children at a federal detention facility in Texas are acting depressed after months of regimentation and confinement, said a Honduran mother who was recently released with her 2-year-old son.

Kenia Galeano, 26, said at a small protest Tuesday in front of a downtown cathedral that the children are suffering after long periods of being held at the 500-bed facility in Karnes City.

U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement authorities, however, have said in the past that the facility provides a number of play and schooling areas where children and residents can move about freely. ICE officials said they would look into questions from The Associated Press about the emotional state of the children at Karnes, but could not provide a response Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of Central American migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border last summer, most of them mothers with children and unaccompanied minors.

Galeano, who entered the country illegally last November and was detained for more than five months, said the children are unaccustomed to being restricted to the facility and have trouble with the more rigid eating and schooling schedules. She said the food, such as reheated vegetables and chicken mixed with pineapple and oranges, is also foreign to them.

Galeano said her former roommate, Delmy Piñeda Cruz, has been detained for nearly eight months with her 11-year-old son who now refuses to go to school and hides under the covers, crying that he wants to leave.

“The kids feel like they are in a prison,” she said. “And they suffer.”

Last September, ICE provided a tour of the facility, which is run by national prison operator GEO Group. Immigrant children were seen playing kickball and sitting in classrooms as they were read stories in Spanish. Officials have defended the facility before, noting that the children get daily schooling and outside play time and that residents are free to use the Internet, flat-screen televisions and a hair salon — all while their cases are processed through the courts.

Despite these amenities, Galeano was among more than two dozen women who nearly two weeks ago ended a five-day hunger strike at the Karnes Family Residential Center, southeast of San Antonio, which houses mostly women and children from Central America who crossed illegally and are now seeking asylum.

Last February, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against ICE’s policy of detaining the mothers and children without bond. Since then, immigration attorneys say the women have been receiving bonds of $7,500 to $15,000, which they cannot afford. Also, mothers known to have previously entered the country illegally are not issued bonds.

Some 15 to 20 mothers have been detained at the facility longer than five months and two have been there at least 10 months, said Mohammad Abdollahi, advocacy director at the San Antonio-based Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES. He said 10 women have begun a second protest in the facility, refusing any scheduled activities and eating one meal a day to bring attention to their prolonged detainment.

ICE will monitor residents at Karnes to verify that they are eating meals and snacks provided to ensure their welfare, spokeswoman Nina Pruneda said in a statement.

“ICE fully respects the rights of all people to voice their opinion without interference, and all detainees, including those in family residential facilities such as Karnes, are permitted to do so,” she said.

SAN ANTONIO — Immigrant children at a federal detention facility in Texas are acting depressed after months of regimentation and confinement, said a Honduran mother who was recently released with her 2-year-old son.

Kenia Galeano, 26, said at a small protest Tuesday in front of a downtown cathedral that the children are suffering after long periods of being held at the 500-bed facility in Karnes City.

U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement authorities, however, have said in the past that the facility provides a number of play and schooling areas where children and residents can move about freely. ICE officials said they would look into questions from The Associated Press about the emotional state of the children at Karnes, but could not provide a response Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of Central American migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border last summer, most of them mothers with children and unaccompanied minors.

Galeano, who entered the country illegally last November and was detained for more than five months, said the children are unaccustomed to being restricted to the facility and have trouble with the more rigid eating and schooling schedules. She said the food, such as reheated vegetables and chicken mixed with pineapple and oranges, is also foreign to them.

Galeano said her former roommate, Delmy Piñeda Cruz, has been detained for nearly eight months with her 11-year-old son who now refuses to go to school and hides under the covers, crying that he wants to leave.

“The kids feel like they are in a prison,” she said. “And they suffer.”

Last September, ICE provided a tour of the facility, which is run by national prison operator GEO Group. Immigrant children were seen playing kickball and sitting in classrooms as they were read stories in Spanish. Officials have defended the facility before, noting that the children get daily schooling and outside play time and that residents are free to use the Internet, flat-screen televisions and a hair salon — all while their cases are processed through the courts.

Despite these amenities, Galeano was among more than two dozen women who nearly two weeks ago ended a five-day hunger strike at the Karnes Family Residential Center, southeast of San Antonio, which houses mostly women and children from Central America who crossed illegally and are now seeking asylum.

Last February, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against ICE’s policy of detaining the mothers and children without bond. Since then, immigration attorneys say the women have been receiving bonds of $7,500 to $15,000, which they cannot afford. Also, mothers known to have previously entered the country illegally are not issued bonds.

Some 15 to 20 mothers have been detained at the facility longer than five months and two have been there at least 10 months, said Mohammad Abdollahi, advocacy director at the San Antonio-based Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES. He said 10 women have begun a second protest in the facility, refusing any scheduled activities and eating one meal a day to bring attention to their prolonged detainment.

ICE will monitor residents at Karnes to verify that they are eating meals and snacks provided to ensure their welfare, spokeswoman Nina Pruneda said in a statement.

“ICE fully respects the rights of all people to voice their opinion without interference, and all detainees, including those in family residential facilities such as Karnes, are permitted to do so,” she said.

A federal judge in Seattle has given immigrant advocates a victory. He is allowing a challenge to move forward dealing with the Obama Administration’s effort to fast-track deportation hearings for immigrant children.

One of the key issues in the 2016 presidential campaign is certain to be how the candidates propose to deal with illegal immigration, from border security to the treatment of undocumented individuals already in the United States.

The question of immigration reform has particular salience to the large and growing Latino electorate, a group that leans heavily Democratic and makes up an important part of the coalition of voters that a Democratic candidate needs to assemble in a winning run for the White House.

Right now, that candidate seems likely to be Hillary Clinton, who officially announced her presidential run on Sunday afternoon. Unless there is a massive and totally unexpected change in the general position of the Republican Party between now and November 2016, the one thing Clinton can be absolutely sure of is that she won’t be losing Latino voters to a Republican on the issue of immigration reform.

However, being sure that voters won’t support your opponent is only half the battle – Clinton is going to need to inspire Latino voters to come to the polls in the first place. And right now, immigration activists say that she hasn’t given them much to work with.

Cesar Vargas, co-director of the Dream Action Coalition, a group that pushes immigration reform friendly to the undocumented population was one of a pair of activists who memorably confronted Clinton in Iowa last September, in an effort to pin her down on immigration issues.

In an interview, Vargas said that at the time, Clinton appeared to be “not very well versed on immigration policy.”

President Obama had recently decided to delay taking executive action to ease the threat of deportation for some undocumented immigrants, a move widely seen as a blatantly political decision ahead of the 2014 elections.

“The President has broken his promise to the Latino community, and we wanted to know if you stand by the President’s delay on immigration,” Vargas said to Clinton at the time.

“You know,” Clinton said as she kept walking, “I think we need to elect more Democrats.”

“It was just a partisan response, and is suggested she didn’t know exactly what to say,” Vargas remembers. And, he says, Clinton hasn’t done much since to convince immigration activists that she deserves their support.

When Obama eventually took the executive action he had delayed, protecting several million undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation, she came out with a statement in support of the move.

She has also expressed support for comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for the undocumented. In 2007, she supported an effort by then-President George W. Bush to reform the immigration system.

But Vargas and the activist community, who feel somewhat betrayed by the Obama administration’s failure to move on immigration reform earlier in his tenure as president, are looking for more. Clinton, he says, has so far not provided enough detail or expressed enough commitment to satisfy his coalition’s members.

“We learned out lesson in 2008 from Barack Obama, who promised us immigration reform in his first year,” said Vargas. “We can’t be star-struck.”

He said, “The usual talking points are not going to be enough. Saying she supports comprehensive immigration reform and the president’s executive actions is not going to be enough. We need bold leadership that would expand executive action if Congress fails to act.”

Clinton, he said, also needs to show the Latino community that she “understands the plight” of the immigrant community. Last summer, he pointed out, she said that the children being stopped at the Southern border ought to be sent back.

“The majority of these children are eligible for asylum because many of them are escaping rape or violent death,” said Vargas, noting that the United Nations has said that the majority should qualify for refugee status.

And then there was Clinton’s video announcement of her campaign, which prominently featured a pair of Latino brothers – speaking in Spanish – who were preparing to open a new restaurant.

“It was a little comical to us,” said Vargas that Clinton’s campaign chose to portray Latino immigrants unable or unwilling to speak English. “Why couldn’t she have two Latino brothers speaking English?” he asked.

That’s one of many questions Latino voters and others concerned about immigration reform are likely to have for Clinton in the coming months.

Immigration reform has been one of President Obama’s biggest political battles, and that looks to be no different for the growing pool of candidates for the 2016 presidential race. As the field fills out, most recently with Hillary Clinton and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio entering the race, questions remain over whether the next White House occupant might help or hinder prospects for comprehensive reform, or try to undo Obama’s immigration executive action for undocumented immigrants.

Marco Rubio

Republican candidates still face the tricky balancing act of attracting Latino voters while appealing to party hardliners on immigration. Rubio, one of the two Latino candidates in the ring so far, is already facing scrutiny regarding his 180-degree turn on immigration in recent years. Rubio one of the original sponsors of the “Gang of Eight” bipartisan immigration bill in 2013 that was considered Congress’ best chance at the time for passing comprehensive reform. While that bill assured a range of border security requirements be met — including completing 700 miles of border fencing and increasing the number of Border Patrol agents — it also provided a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers (undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children), streamlined legal immigration systems and even included a program to reunite deported parents with their families in the U.S. under certain conditions.

But since that bill faltered in Congress, Rubio has changed tack on immigration, throwing his support behind piecemeal legislation and emphasizing border security over talk of any kind of relief for undocumented immigrants. “The only path forward that has any chance of success is to bring illegal immigration under control [first],” Rubio told reporters in January. After that, he said, lawmakers could then streamline the legal immigration process.

In the past, he’s supported in-state tuition for Dreamers and planned a bill that would grant temporary deportation relief to those immigrants under certain conditions. But he criticized Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, announced in 2012, saying it had “poisoned the well” for immigration reform. Last summer he also called for “winding down” the program, saying it was fueling the surge of unaccompanied Central American migrants at the southwestern border.

Ted Cruz

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, the other Cuban-American presidential contender in the field, has long been a vocal opponent of Obama’s immigration policies and any relief for undocumented immigrants. He voted against the 2013 comprehensive reform bill, criticizing its provisions as providing “amnesty” for illegal immigration, and advocated defunding both DACA and Obama’s more recent executive action for undocumented parents of U.S. citizens, known as DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of U.S. Citizens and Long-Term Residents).

Instead, Cruz has pushed for dramatic increases in border security, including tripling the number of Border Patrol agents, quadrupling the amount of border monitoring and surveillance equipment, and building a double-layered fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Hillary Clinton

Clinton, the presumed Democratic nominee, has remained relatively reticent on immigration issues since taking some heat during the 2008 primary for reversing her stance on drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants. (She appeared to support such a policy at first, but later denied she was advocating for such a move.) In recent years, she’s expressed support for Obama’s executive action as well as a bipartisan comprehensive bill that includes a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living illegally in the U.S. At the same time, she has faced pressure from immigration activists to advocate more for reform.

Last summer she spoke out on the surge of Central American migrants at the southern border, saying the U.S. would send back those who crossed into the U.S. illegally. “We have to send a clear message: Just because your child gets across the border doesn’t mean your child gets to stay,” she said during a town hall meeting in June. “We don’t want to send a message that is contrary to our laws or encourage more children to make that dangerous journey.”

Clinton has defended Obama against criticism of his deportation record as more than 2 million immigrants have been deported during his time in office. At the June town hall meeting, she reminded the audience there were “laws that impose certain obligations on him” on deportations. One of those laws, however, was passed while she was in the White House as first lady: The Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, signed by Bill Clinton in 1996, initiated the practice of expedited removal, in which immigrants are deported from ports of entry without access to an immigration hearing.

The law also expanded the list of crimes that could result in deportations for green-card holders and immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, putting acts like murder, rape, forgery, perjury and tax evasion under the label of “aggravated felony.”

Rand Paul

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, meanwhile, has labeled himself a “moderate” on immigration policy, and said he supports providing work authorization for the 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the United States. “I am in favor of doing immigration reform, but it should be done in the right fashion,” he said in January.

However, he also voted against the bipartisan Senate bill, saying it failed to address border security adequately, and submitted a proposal to overturn Obama’s most recent executive action. Four years ago, he also raised eyebrows when he backed a constitutional amendment to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants.

Jeb Bush

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush hasn’t officially declared his candidacy for the presidency, but he said he is “actively exploring” a run and is widely expected to join the field of contenders. Last week he expressed a softer tone on immigration than some of the other Republicans presidential hopefuls, saying many immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally “crossed the border because they had no other means to work to be able to provide for their family.”

“Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love,” he said, according to the Washington Post.

Bush has criticized Obama’s executive action on immigration although he said he supports a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. But on recent occasions when asked if he would rescind the executive action as president, Bush has declined to answer the question, reiterating immigration reform must be done through Congress rather than through the president.

Through his latest research, Javier Polavieja, a professor Sociology in the Social Sciences Department who holds a UC3M- Santander Named Chair of (Cátedra de Excelencia), has shown how European women who emigrate to other countries within the same continent take the cultural norms of their home countries with them. Those norms are decisive when it comes to determining their work behavior.

To reach this conclusion, the researcher compared the attitudes of over three thousand immigrant women from some twenty European countries with those of over forty thousand non-emigrant compatriots with similar characteristics. The study shows that immigrant women from the same country of origin tend to share values of traditionalism and religiosity regardless of the country they have settled in. Using this propensity, which is seen as a predictor of the women’s work behavior, Polavieja found that the negative impact of traditional values on female participation in the workforce proved to be much greater than what had previously been believed: its influence on the likelihood of a woman participating in the workforce is so strong that it is twice that of education.

An innovative method for studying the impact of culture

With this research, which was recently published in the journal American Sociological Review, Polavieja also offers a new way to respond to some of the great social science and economic questions: How does culture influence people’s behavior? This apparently simple question poses one of the most important methodological challenges facing the social sciences, explains Polavieja. In the words of the author, “the problem is that individuals’ values, tastes and preferences (their cultures) are determined by the social context they are immersed in, which in turn influences their opportunities and behavior as well. This makes it terribly difficult to separate the role of values, tastes and cultural preferences from social surroundings when human behavior is being explained.” Polavieja’s research proposes using the phenomenon of migration to separate the effect of culture from the effect of social surroundings, for which the study developed an innovative statistical method.

This research was carried out using data from the European Social Survey. The survey measured the traditionalism and religiosity of over three thousand women from 23 European countries, including Turkey and the Ukraine, who are residents in 25 different European countries. The immigrant women’s attitudes and values were compared with over 40,000 non-emigrant European women who were interviewed in the home countries.

The Spanish immigrants, among the least traditional in Europe

According to the study, the women from Turkey, Portugal, Poland and Ireland are the most traditional of the European immigrant women, while the Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Spanish women were the least traditional. The degree of traditionalism was defined by noting the importance the women gave to following customs, norms and values transmitted through religion and the family. The degree of traditionalism decreased as the level of education increased in all of the groups that were studied. This cultural characteristic was associated with “strong gender norms in public and in private,” explains the researcher.

The rate of participation in the workforce for the Spanish immigrant women (77%) was among the highest of the intra-European immigrants, clearly higher than the rates of the women from other countries in the southern part of the continent, such as Italy (60%) or Greece (53%). This figure was only higher in the cases of the women from Sweden (84%), Norway (82%) and Finland (80%) and it was significantly higher than the rates of the French immigrant women (62%), the German (61%) and the British and Irish (both at 59%). The Turkish immigrant women had the lowest rate of participation in the workforce (43%) of the 23 groups that were studied.

The possible applications of the methodology used by Professor Polavieja for this research transcend the relationship between traditionalism and the labor market. He explains this himself when he states that the method that was developed can be used to study any type of cultural impact on human behavior, as long as it can be measured using surveys. This research is part of the Competition, Adaptation and Labor Market Achievement (CALMA) project, which is part of the sixth national program of the Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness’s Scientific Research Plan (Plan de Investigaciones Científicas del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad).

Source Article from http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/ciuo-tim041315.phpTradition is more important than education in determining participation European immigrant women's role in the workforcehttp://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/ciuo-tim041315.phphttp://news.search.yahoo.com/news/rss?p=immigrantimmigrant – Yahoo News Search Resultsimmigrant – Yahoo News Search Results

Through his latest research, Javier Polavieja, a professor Sociology in the Social Sciences Department who holds a UC3M- Santander Named Chair of (Cátedra de Excelencia), has shown how European women who emigrate to other countries within the same continent take the cultural norms of their home countries with them. Those norms are decisive when it comes to determining their work behavior.

To reach this conclusion, the researcher compared the attitudes of over three thousand immigrant women from some twenty European countries with those of over forty thousand non-emigrant compatriots with similar characteristics. The study shows that immigrant women from the same country of origin tend to share values of traditionalism and religiosity regardless of the country they have settled in. Using this propensity, which is seen as a predictor of the women’s work behavior, Polavieja found that the negative impact of traditional values on female participation in the workforce proved to be much greater than what had previously been believed: its influence on the likelihood of a woman participating in the workforce is so strong that it is twice that of education.

An innovative method for studying the impact of culture

With this research, which was recently published in the journal American Sociological Review, Polavieja also offers a new way to respond to some of the great social science and economic questions: How does culture influence people’s behavior? This apparently simple question poses one of the most important methodological challenges facing the social sciences, explains Polavieja. In the words of the author, “the problem is that individuals’ values, tastes and preferences (their cultures) are determined by the social context they are immersed in, which in turn influences their opportunities and behavior as well. This makes it terribly difficult to separate the role of values, tastes and cultural preferences from social surroundings when human behavior is being explained.” Polavieja’s research proposes using the phenomenon of migration to separate the effect of culture from the effect of social surroundings, for which the study developed an innovative statistical method.

This research was carried out using data from the European Social Survey. The survey measured the traditionalism and religiosity of over three thousand women from 23 European countries, including Turkey and the Ukraine, who are residents in 25 different European countries. The immigrant women’s attitudes and values were compared with over 40,000 non-emigrant European women who were interviewed in the home countries.

The Spanish immigrants, among the least traditional in Europe

According to the study, the women from Turkey, Portugal, Poland and Ireland are the most traditional of the European immigrant women, while the Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Spanish women were the least traditional. The degree of traditionalism was defined by noting the importance the women gave to following customs, norms and values transmitted through religion and the family. The degree of traditionalism decreased as the level of education increased in all of the groups that were studied. This cultural characteristic was associated with “strong gender norms in public and in private,” explains the researcher.

The rate of participation in the workforce for the Spanish immigrant women (77%) was among the highest of the intra-European immigrants, clearly higher than the rates of the women from other countries in the southern part of the continent, such as Italy (60%) or Greece (53%). This figure was only higher in the cases of the women from Sweden (84%), Norway (82%) and Finland (80%) and it was significantly higher than the rates of the French immigrant women (62%), the German (61%) and the British and Irish (both at 59%). The Turkish immigrant women had the lowest rate of participation in the workforce (43%) of the 23 groups that were studied.

The possible applications of the methodology used by Professor Polavieja for this research transcend the relationship between traditionalism and the labor market. He explains this himself when he states that the method that was developed can be used to study any type of cultural impact on human behavior, as long as it can be measured using surveys. This research is part of the Competition, Adaptation and Labor Market Achievement (CALMA) project, which is part of the sixth national program of the Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness’s Scientific Research Plan (Plan de Investigaciones Científicas del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad).

Source Article from http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/ciuo-tim041315.phpTradition is more important than education in determining participation European immigrant women's role in the workforcehttp://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/ciuo-tim041315.phphttp://news.search.yahoo.com/news/rss?p=immigrantimmigrant – Yahoo News Search Resultsimmigrant – Yahoo News Search Results

Through his latest research, Javier Polavieja, a professor Sociology in the Social Sciences Department who holds a UC3M- Santander Named Chair of (Cátedra de Excelencia), has shown how European women who emigrate to other countries within the same continent take the cultural norms of their home countries with them. Those norms are decisive when it comes to determining their work behavior.

To reach this conclusion, the researcher compared the attitudes of over three thousand immigrant women from some twenty European countries with those of over forty thousand non-emigrant compatriots with similar characteristics. The study shows that immigrant women from the same country of origin tend to share values of traditionalism and religiosity regardless of the country they have settled in. Using this propensity, which is seen as a predictor of the women’s work behavior, Polavieja found that the negative impact of traditional values on female participation in the workforce proved to be much greater than what had previously been believed: its influence on the likelihood of a woman participating in the workforce is so strong that it is twice that of education.

An innovative method for studying the impact of culture

With this research, which was recently published in the journal American Sociological Review, Polavieja also offers a new way to respond to some of the great social science and economic questions: How does culture influence people’s behavior? This apparently simple question poses one of the most important methodological challenges facing the social sciences, explains Polavieja. In the words of the author, “the problem is that individuals’ values, tastes and preferences (their cultures) are determined by the social context they are immersed in, which in turn influences their opportunities and behavior as well. This makes it terribly difficult to separate the role of values, tastes and cultural preferences from social surroundings when human behavior is being explained.” Polavieja’s research proposes using the phenomenon of migration to separate the effect of culture from the effect of social surroundings, for which the study developed an innovative statistical method.

This research was carried out using data from the European Social Survey. The survey measured the traditionalism and religiosity of over three thousand women from 23 European countries, including Turkey and the Ukraine, who are residents in 25 different European countries. The immigrant women’s attitudes and values were compared with over 40,000 non-emigrant European women who were interviewed in the home countries.

The Spanish immigrants, among the least traditional in Europe

According to the study, the women from Turkey, Portugal, Poland and Ireland are the most traditional of the European immigrant women, while the Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Spanish women were the least traditional. The degree of traditionalism was defined by noting the importance the women gave to following customs, norms and values transmitted through religion and the family. The degree of traditionalism decreased as the level of education increased in all of the groups that were studied. This cultural characteristic was associated with “strong gender norms in public and in private,” explains the researcher.

The rate of participation in the workforce for the Spanish immigrant women (77%) was among the highest of the intra-European immigrants, clearly higher than the rates of the women from other countries in the southern part of the continent, such as Italy (60%) or Greece (53%). This figure was only higher in the cases of the women from Sweden (84%), Norway (82%) and Finland (80%) and it was significantly higher than the rates of the French immigrant women (62%), the German (61%) and the British and Irish (both at 59%). The Turkish immigrant women had the lowest rate of participation in the workforce (43%) of the 23 groups that were studied.

The possible applications of the methodology used by Professor Polavieja for this research transcend the relationship between traditionalism and the labor market. He explains this himself when he states that the method that was developed can be used to study any type of cultural impact on human behavior, as long as it can be measured using surveys. This research is part of the Competition, Adaptation and Labor Market Achievement (CALMA) project, which is part of the sixth national program of the Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness’s Scientific Research Plan (Plan de Investigaciones Científicas del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad).

Source Article from http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/ciuo-tim041315.phpTradition is more important than education in determining participation European immigrant women's role in the workforcehttp://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/ciuo-tim041315.phphttp://news.search.yahoo.com/news/rss?p=immigrantimmigrant – Yahoo News Search Resultsimmigrant – Yahoo News Search Results

Through his latest research, Javier Polavieja, a professor Sociology in the Social Sciences Department who holds a UC3M- Santander Named Chair of (Cátedra de Excelencia), has shown how European women who emigrate to other countries within the same continent take the cultural norms of their home countries with them. Those norms are decisive when it comes to determining their work behavior.

To reach this conclusion, the researcher compared the attitudes of over three thousand immigrant women from some twenty European countries with those of over forty thousand non-emigrant compatriots with similar characteristics. The study shows that immigrant women from the same country of origin tend to share values of traditionalism and religiosity regardless of the country they have settled in. Using this propensity, which is seen as a predictor of the women’s work behavior, Polavieja found that the negative impact of traditional values on female participation in the workforce proved to be much greater than what had previously been believed: its influence on the likelihood of a woman participating in the workforce is so strong that it is twice that of education.

An innovative method for studying the impact of culture

With this research, which was recently published in the journal American Sociological Review, Polavieja also offers a new way to respond to some of the great social science and economic questions: How does culture influence people’s behavior? This apparently simple question poses one of the most important methodological challenges facing the social sciences, explains Polavieja. In the words of the author, “the problem is that individuals’ values, tastes and preferences (their cultures) are determined by the social context they are immersed in, which in turn influences their opportunities and behavior as well. This makes it terribly difficult to separate the role of values, tastes and cultural preferences from social surroundings when human behavior is being explained.” Polavieja’s research proposes using the phenomenon of migration to separate the effect of culture from the effect of social surroundings, for which the study developed an innovative statistical method.

This research was carried out using data from the European Social Survey. The survey measured the traditionalism and religiosity of over three thousand women from 23 European countries, including Turkey and the Ukraine, who are residents in 25 different European countries. The immigrant women’s attitudes and values were compared with over 40,000 non-emigrant European women who were interviewed in the home countries.

The Spanish immigrants, among the least traditional in Europe

According to the study, the women from Turkey, Portugal, Poland and Ireland are the most traditional of the European immigrant women, while the Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Spanish women were the least traditional. The degree of traditionalism was defined by noting the importance the women gave to following customs, norms and values transmitted through religion and the family. The degree of traditionalism decreased as the level of education increased in all of the groups that were studied. This cultural characteristic was associated with “strong gender norms in public and in private,” explains the researcher.

The rate of participation in the workforce for the Spanish immigrant women (77%) was among the highest of the intra-European immigrants, clearly higher than the rates of the women from other countries in the southern part of the continent, such as Italy (60%) or Greece (53%). This figure was only higher in the cases of the women from Sweden (84%), Norway (82%) and Finland (80%) and it was significantly higher than the rates of the French immigrant women (62%), the German (61%) and the British and Irish (both at 59%). The Turkish immigrant women had the lowest rate of participation in the workforce (43%) of the 23 groups that were studied.

The possible applications of the methodology used by Professor Polavieja for this research transcend the relationship between traditionalism and the labor market. He explains this himself when he states that the method that was developed can be used to study any type of cultural impact on human behavior, as long as it can be measured using surveys. This research is part of the Competition, Adaptation and Labor Market Achievement (CALMA) project, which is part of the sixth national program of the Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness’s Scientific Research Plan (Plan de Investigaciones Científicas del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad).

Source Article from http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/ciuo-tim041315.phpTradition is more important than education in determining participation European immigrant women's role in the workforcehttp://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/ciuo-tim041315.phphttp://news.search.yahoo.com/news/rss?p=immigrantimmigrant – Yahoo News Search Resultsimmigrant – Yahoo News Search Results